Straight Out O’ Brooklyn: A Report From The 1998 Williamsbuurg Brooklyn Film Festival

Straight Out O' Brooklyn: A Report From The 1998 Williamsbuurg Brooklyn Film Festival

Straight Out O' Brooklyn: A Report From The 1998 WilliamsbuurgBrooklyn Film Festival

by Anaye Milligan

“My goal here was to give the opportunity to others that hasn’t beengiven to me. I truly wanted to create a festival of filmmakers.There’s no politics here.”

So went the thinking of Marco Ursino, the Italian filmmaker whoconceived and produced this years Williamsburg Brooklyn FilmFestival aka “The Chameleon” — named for the multi-colored lizardbecause of the neighborhood’s 5,000-strong eclectic artistic communitythat is “always in transformation,” claims Ursino. “Every year will be adifferent color.” The four day event (this year’s color was yellow)which ran June 4th through June 7th, was a labor of love that had it’sroots in frustration. Having had little success getting recognition ofhis own work, Ursino came upon the idea of beginning his own festival,joining the event this year and adding the international focus.

“I lost my motivation. At other festivals, there’s too much politics.‘Who’s in your film? How much publicity can you afford? Can you pay tocome out and promote it?'” Ursino heard. His response: “I would like tobe an alternative.”

Ursino began working on the festival just six months ago, and foundlittle support in the beginning. In a market seemingly saturated withfestivals, Ursino received little encouragement from friends andcolleagues. “So many people tried to discourage me. ‘You won’t get anysubmissions. There are so many festivals already…’ But I received100 films. I screened them and put together a very solid program.”

That program included such strong showings as Cevin D. Soling’s short“Boris the Dog” featured on MTV, the colorful documentary by SethHenrikson & Dave Sarno, “Goreville USA“, and the winner of the SXSW BestNarrative Feature Award, Tamara Hernandez’s perverse love story, “MenCry Bullets” which also took home Williamsburg’s Best Feature award.Other award winners were “Hole in the Head” by Eli Kabillio, anhour-long documentary about trepanation, the process of boring a hole inthe skull, which won the Best Documentary prize; “Flying with theAngels,” a short subject about a woman’s subconscious, from directorsRichard Newton & Nancy Ferguson, which was awarded Best Experimentalfilm; and Christopher Young’s “Falling” an 18-minute short about a mantrying to survive a climbing accident with the woman he loves, was votedBest Short film.

True to the modest beginnings of this inaugural festival, the films werescreened not in a theater, but inside what was once an old bank that hassince been converted into a community cultural center. But unlike mostnew festivals, the technical production was nearly flawless. Films andpanel discussions began on time and both the picture and sound qualitywere good.

Perhaps the only disappointing aspect of the festival was its lowattendance, especially on Thursday and Friday. Without the recognizablestars or big promotional budgets that Ursino didn’t want to make aprerequisite for this festival, news of the event was largely limited toword of mouth. And even some of those who may have wanted to attend,may not have been able to locate the festival, as there were only a fewads taken out in local publications.

“As far as the audience level, I was wishing for a little more,” saidUrsino. “I did what I could do, but promotion is a world of it’s own.It’s money. Next year will be huge. There will be many more people andsponsors involved.”

[Anaye Milligan is a screenwriter who works in Brooklyn and one of theproducers of “Floating,” which screens at the Seattle International FilmFestival and L.A.’s Outfest.]